


i'm looking for ways (back home)

by biochemprincess



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>imagine you are completely alone. how would you know how to find your way back? how would you know where your home is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm looking for ways (back home)

**Author's Note:**

> You probably already know that I really love to write about Jemma's emotions and yes, I did it again - oops. This is very different from everything I've written before, more poem-style than usual. So every comment is very much appreciated. :)  
> Title is from the song "Back Home" by Fritz Kalkbrenner.  
> You can also find me under felicityymeghansmoak.tumblr.com, if you'd like to. :)

_imagine yourself in your house. a house you built, you built it with your bare hands._

_imagine the furniture, all the little details, the seasonal decoration._

_the walls are plastered with photographs of your life. every moment, a timeline of your happiness._

_imagine yourself in your house. and then feel how it all crumbles to pieces as somebody sets it on fire._

_breath in smoke and fire, watch it all burn down to ashes._

_this is how it feels. to - lose - it - all._

 

 

She didn't sleep. For the nine longest days of her life, Jemma Simmons stayed awake.

In hindsight she's not sure how she accomplished it, because she's a biochemist and she knows how the human biology works, just like she knows that the human body needs sleep to function.

Maybe she wasn't human, those nine days.

And while she sat by his bed, holding his lifeless hand, she didn't even want to be.

 

 

_imagine yourself underwater. you are surrounded by cold darkness._

_the ocean tries to crawl into your bones, the siren's song lulling you into a never ending sleep._

_you think about hydrogen and oxygen, about how those two elements combined are going to possibly kill you._

_imagine yourself chained by the waves. your last breath is leaving your body._

_would fight or die?_

 

 

She did visit her parents, before HYDRA. It was a deal she'd made with Coulson, though in the end she didn't know why.

Why did it even matter? What would one week with her family change?

They looked at her like a caged animal, trying to find out what was wrong with her.

And while they tried to be helpful and accepting, they couldn't understand what had happened to her.

Which made her bargain with Coulson even more obscure.

She didn't know when she got on the plane and she didn't know when she saw them again and she didn't know when she left them behind once again.

But yes, deep inside her, Jemma did know. Because if she visited them, at least she hadn't lied to him.

 

 

_imagine yourself consumed by rage._

_you throw your only glasses against the yellow walls of your empty apartment._

_imagine yourself consumed by grief._

_you cry yourself to sleep at night during the first nights alone._

_imagine yourself blank and hollow._

_you fill out the black hole inside you with something you are not._

_imagine you are a different person._

_so you can survive whatever the world throws at you._

 

 

The lying was not the problem. The problem was her loneliness.

Jemma felt isolated - from her team, her friends, herself.

Everything always seemed so far away, unreachable.

It felt like she wasn't the master of her mind anymore, only a spectator of her own body.

Sometimes she would talk to herself, to finally get the words out of her systems.

Well, not herself, but a version of the man who had been beside her the whole damn time. Until she left.

 

 

_imagine you are in a desert. in a forest. in the arctic. in the middle of nowhere._

_imagine you are the last person on earth._

_imagine you are completely alone._

_how would you know how to find your way back?_

_how would you know where your home is?_

 

Despite being back at the base, the feeling of unease stayed. 

Jemma still felt lonely, though she wasn't alone anymore.

She was still cautious, looking across the shoulder more often than necessary.

Day by day, she tried to rip out the different persona she'd created.

There were so many new faces, all of them judging her silently.

She knew how they whispered her name behind her back and tried to ignore it.

Jemma didn't feel welcome.

 

 

_imagine you fall from the sky. and your fall never ends._

_the wind catches in your hair and caresses your skin._

_imagine you are icarus. wax gluing your wings to your back._

_maybe you deserve to fall._

_because you wanted too much and you are not worthy._

 

 

They tried, they really did. Or they gave the impression they did.

They avoided each, but eventually they always ended up in the same room staring - not staring at each other.

Like magnets, attracting each other.

They both didn't find the right words or the right timing. 

They had never been so far apart ever since they met.

But it seemed like they couldn't stay out of each other's life.

No matter what they tried, their hands always touched and their eyes always locked.

 

 

_imagine you start over again._

_imagine he is standing in the lab next to you again, just like all those years before._

_imagine he smiles at you and you smile back at him._

_imagine that maybe, you're going to be friends again._

_imagine that maybe he's going to be your best friend again._

_imagine that maybe he's going to be more._

_would you try?_


End file.
